Spurs’ outspoken interim manager must now make his voice heard from dugout

Daniel Levy has tried just about every other managerial structure in pursuit of regular Champions League football, so perhaps we should not be surprised that he is now entrusting the Tottenham Hotspur team to a novice.

Wednesday night will be the first time that Tim Sherwood has been the man making the decisions in the dugout and, in Sam Allardyce, he will be going up against a veteran of some 852 games. It is clearly a major gamble but, as ever with Levy, also well calculated.

The Tottenham chairman knows Sherwood, he rates his ideas. He has been impressed by his strength of character and there is a thought at the back of his mind that this could amount to the unearthing of a rough diamond.

Equally, if it does not work out, a nagging question – and perhaps background voice – will have been silenced. A theme of Sherwood’s career has been his influential training ground presence and it does not take much research into his career to discover some conflicting testimony.

It is well summed up by seven years at Blackburn Rovers that peaked in him leading the club to the Premier League title and ended with Roy Hodgson complaining- about his attitude.

Alongside Alan Shearer, Colin Hendry, Tim Flowers and Kevin Gallagher, Sherwood led a dressing room full of big personalities to the greatest moment in Blackburn’s post-war history.

“It was inevitable he was going to go into management at some stage,” says Gallagher. “He had the knowledge and a way that he wanted to play football. I think Tim will be able to take to it.”

Gallagher can still vividly recall Sherwood’s “inspirational” but unpredictable methods for galvanising team spirit.

“He is a wily character, an organiser, someone you looked up to,” he added. “He was a bit of everything. If he thought you needed a blast because you had been bad, he would have a go at you. But he would also take it if needed. He would wind you up, do jovial things. He did inspirational things. I remember after we played Wimbledon once he said, ‘Let’s see the Naseem Hamed fight in New York’. We jumped on Concorde. He would do things like that off the top of his head.

“Chris Sutton came to the club, Tim walked in and said, ‘Let’s go and test drive a Bentley’. Chris Sutton bought one. You didn’t know what he was going to do and all of a sudden he would pop up with an idea.”

After being sacked by Blackburn in 1998, Hodgson made his own claims about Sherwood and he became unhappy at not being granted a move to Tottenham.

“Up until that time, Tim had done a very good job in captaining the team and was also very supportive

to myself and the other players,” Hodgson said. “He became very disenchanted. Being such an important character in the club, his discontent was able to spread to a lot of other players.”

Sherwood responded at the time by saying that managers get sacked for “results” and, in a subsequent interview, joked that he “didn’t want to take all the credit” for Hodgson’s departure. Yet he clearly still learned from Hodgson, describing him as the best coach, if not manager, he has worked with.

Sherwood also clashed with Glenn Hoddle during his playing career and, after leaving Spurs, called for his sacking. Hoddle accused him of having an “axe to grind” but Sherwood’s straight talking has also won many admirers.

Harry Redknapp managed Sherwood at Portsmouth and described his football knowledge as “unbelievable” before recruiting him to the Tottenham coaching staff in 2008. Since then, he has impressed senior figures at the club. Levy considered Sherwood for the technical director role that ultimately went to Franco Baldini and refused him permission to speak with Blackburn about their managerial vacancy last year.

In an interview during the summer, Sherwood outlined his philosophy and belief in promoting local talent. “There’s a lot of poor players playing in the Premier League earning millions and millions,” he said. “There’s nothing better than home-grown players as history would tell you. Arsenal’s best player ever has been Tony Adams. Liverpool’s has been Steven Gerrard.

“Even at Tottenham. Ledley King is the best player they have ever had and Glenn Hoddle behind him.

“They are all home grown. That means when you cut them in half they bleed the colour of the club. It’s not all about going out and spending millions and millions of pounds. If you can’t sit at the top table with these clubs like Chelsea and Man City you have to find another way and it is about developing your home grown talent.”

Sherwood has talked the talk. He now finally has the chance to walk the walk.